Commuting, Page 5 Category

Apparently for some simply stealing a guys bike isn’t enough. Instead of stopping there, let’s beat him unconscious too. At least that’s what a SacBee article is reporting.

That actually raises an interesting point that has always bothered me. Historically we’ve had much higher legal penalties for stealing primary transportation – first horses and now cars. These penalties have been (and are) higher than the simple financial value of the stolen property. Why? A big reason is that stealing someone’s primary transportation can leave a person stranded in a way that can potentially be dangerous for them. Well, what about those of us that use bikes as our primary transportation? What happens when I am 30, 40, 50 miles or more from home and get my bike stolen? Where’s my “Grand Theft Bicycle” statute?

All that aside, I wish this cyclist a speedy recovery. I’m still feeling the mental effects of the theft of my bike, and I didn’t have the added insult of a physical assault to go along with it.

After the recent theft of my bike off of Caltrain, I started thinking a little more about bicycle security on the bike cars. I come from an InfoSec background, and a large part of being successful in that field involves understanding how “the bad guys” go about their attacks. I starting thinking about the bike cars with the same frame of mind and started to think about how I would steal a bike from the train if I so desired. The argument here is that, the more potential theft gambits I know of, the better equipped I will be to defend against those thefts.

Now I know that some of you will be thinking “But Ross – you’re just telling the thieves how to do it!” It is a common statement, and open to some debate. On the one side are those that believe that publishing information about how to engage in a particular harmful act (breaking into a computer system, stealing a bike, whatever) only serves to make the criminals more efficient. On the other side of the argument there are those that maintain that the criminals can come up with this stuff on their own, and our ignorance of these techniques only makes us more likely to be victimized. Obviously I belong to the second group.

I’ll also offer some of my own suggestions on how to help mitigate the risk of getting your bike stolen from you.

I’ll start off with an examination of how the perpetrator was able to get away with my bike, which was less than 15-20 feet away and in plain sight, without me even being aware it had happened. This scenario is put together with bits and pieces of information I got from the conductor and other passengers at the time.

The “plenty of time, grab-n-go” theft

The prerequisite for this theft involves a location where the train is sitting idle for long periods of time. Specifically, this takes place at either San Francisco 4th & King for southbound trains, and San Jose for northbound trains. Our victim boards and places his bike against one of the racks. He then goes to his seat – turning his back on the bike by necessity. Furthermore, most of us will be slightly distracted as we sit down – pulling laptops out of our bags, eating the Subway sandwich you just purchased in the station, whatever. All of these provide moments of opportunity for our thief to notice your inattention, grab your bike from the rack and head out the door. As soon as they hit the platform, they can jump on the bike and be out of the station to the street – probably faster than you can even get out of your seat and out the door, alert the conductor, or whatever. If you happen to be sitting on the top level of one of the older cars, your path out the door after the thief is even further hindered.

The “pretend to be a regular commuter” theft

This method is probably more effective on crowded trains, and again may benefit from being carried out before leaving either the SF or SJ stations. People standing around, shuffling bikes can often block your view of your bike from your seat, further setting the stage for our thief. In this situation, our victim is already on the train with their bike in the racks. Our thief boards with a bike of his own (crappy and disposable, we would assume) and loiters near the doors. When the thief feels the time is right, she will approach the rack where our victim’s bike is and remove it from the rack – acting as if she is simply putting her bike behind the victim’s. This is not an unusual occurrence on Caltrain as folks organize the bikes to ensure that those getting off first don’t have to move other bikes out of the way. But already our thief has the upper hand. Perhaps she already kn0ws this is your bike and as casually checking to see if you are watching. Even if not, though, she’s already got the bike in her hands and gained an advantage. Time this (by fumbling around, whatever) and you can actually spring towards the door as soon as the chime and “Caution, the doors are about to close” announcement comes on. Our thief is out the door and, even if our victim is fast enough to catch her, the doors are already closed and the train is beginning to move out of the station. Sorry – you’re bike is gone.

Protecting yourself

Caltrain doesn’t allow you to lock your bikes to the racks – for understandable reasons. However, there are some things that you can do to help alleviate the threat – most of which result in making your bike appear as a more difficult target:

While you can’t lock your bike to the train (or other bikes) you can lock your bike to itself. Put your UBolt or chain through one or both rims and through the frame. This eliminates the possibility of a riding getaway, and may actually fool more ignorant or less observant thieves into thinking the bike actually is locked to the rack.

Remove the saddle and take it with you. Or – another approach is to turn the saddle around backwards. Again – hindering the quick ride away.

Place your bike in the racks farthest from the door. Truth be told, however, mine was in the fourth rack from the door of one of the older style train cars. Still, bikes close to the door sure feel like easier targets.

Watch your bike very very carefully until someone else places there bike on top of yours. You might want to notice where that “outside” bike is going, too, so that you can pay attention at that stop.

Sit as close to your bike as possible. Hell, maybe just stand next to it depending on the length of your commute.

Take removable stuff like cycling computers and lights with you to your seat. Yes – these can get stolen too, and are a lot harder for you to notice when it is happening.

Basically, though, there is one thing that protects you more than anything else you can do – watch your bike! Certainly no one is going to stare at their bike non-stop through their entire trip. However, if you are vigilant at all of the station stops you can go a long way towards protecting your bike. Clearly no one is getting away with your bike on a moving train!

Hope this helps others somehow avoid my fate. Cheers, happy cycling and may all of your bikes arrive at the station with you!

9:37am I depart San Francisco on the second train of the morning. Caltrain has something of a slightly troubled history with velo commuters, generally surrounding bicycle capacity on their trains. Caltrain has specific, dedicated bicycle cars with a fixed number of spaces for bicycles. So, unless you have a folding bike (which can go on any of the train cars – not just the bike cars) you will potentially be denied entrance to the train if all of the available slots are full – known as “getting bumped” in the Caltrain rider vernacular.

In the past year Caltrain has done a lot to improve this situation. My commute home from Palo Alto on one of the Bullet trains is one of the busier train stops, and getting bumped used to be a regular occurrence for me. Looking back, however, it seems it has been a very very long time since I’ve had to wait for the next train.

They’ve increased their capacity in two ways. First, they started to remove seats to allow room for more bike racks. Each rack takes the space of about 4 people seats, and holds 4 bikes. In addition to adding racks in the bike cars, they’ve increased the number of trainsets rolling with two bike cars. That means that some of the trains can handle 80 bikes at one time.

Caltrain has a little more of a “Big city commuter train” than the Amtrak Capitol Corridor trains. There is not quite as much room in the seats, for one thing. Also, of the two types of cars only one style has any table top surfaces at all. Of the cars that do have tables, they are tiny in comparison to the Amtrak cars. Also, electrical outlets on the train cars are rare and seem to be intended for servicing the train more than providing power to riders power-hungry electronic gizmos.

All that being said, I’m not sure I’ll call the ride unpleasant – it just feels a little more like mass transit. City bus like almost.

Menlo Park Station

Caltrain travels up and down the pennisula in a basicly north/south line between San Francisco and San Jose – stitching together SF’s hipsters and the Silicon Valley’s techsters. Even with frequent stops, it is by far faster compared to driving, especially during peak traffic times.

Finally, I jump off at Palo Alto. It is a short couple of blocks to the office where I work – and I walk in the door at about 10:37 or so. It has been about 4 hours and 15 minutes since I left my driveway. During that time I’ve:

Traveled about 116 miles

Reached a top speed of about 80 MPH

Averaged about 28MPH – including stops waiting for busses and trains to leave – across the entire trip

Drank 3 cups of coffee and eaten 119 grams of carbohydrates

Burned approximately 413 calories.

Written 1.5 blog posts

Napped about 15 minutes

Read about 10 or 15 emails

Come into contact with countless people

Actually spoke to 5-10 folks

Saw a hawk flying right next to the train window

Dropped my phone under the train seat trying to get a picture of the hawk flying right next to the train window

Stopped at zero gas stations or toll booths, and was stuck in my car for zero minutes waiting for traffic jams to clear

Felt very happy in the fact that, although my commute is up to 6 times longer than most, I’m contributing substantially less CO2 emissions than drivers.

There you have it. Thanks for following along with me on my trip to work. Unfortunately, the application I was hoping would allow me to post an exact map of my route isn’t allowing me to upload right now. At some point I’ll get that map and post it here online.

The Amtrak Bay Area Commuter Train (aka Amtrak Capitol Corridor) is actually a fairly comfortable service. The run hourly or less between Sacramento and Oakland, with some of the trains heading east as far as Auburn, and south/west as far as San Jose. Almost all of the cars have standard electric outlets to allow you to power your laptop and other electronics without fear of draining your battery. That, coupled with the fairly spacious seats with either full tables or fold down trays makes working on the commute a very viable option. In fact, the entire previous post was done in transit between Davis and Fairfield.

They also have a cafe car – or, more accurately, a snack bar. Drinks and a couple of microwaved offerings make up the menu. And yea – alchoholic beverages are available. The prices are a little on the steep side, but nothing compared to, say, a hot dog at a sports arena. You’re always able to bring your own food along as well.

On this morning, the train left right on time – 7:00am. I often get a kick out of watching the auto driving commuters on I-80 coming out of Sac heading towards Davis and teh Bay Area. Usually I get to be all smug about the fact that I’m, not stuck in that traffic. Today, however, traffic seemed pretty light. [video clip]

I was finally able to catch some video [video clip] of the delta between Fairfield and Suisuin Bay. Everytime I go through here I always imagine Lord of the Rings, and Gollum leading the Frodo and Sam through the Dead Marshes. OK – guess I’m a geek…

Across the bridge near the Suisun naval reserve fleet, past petro refineries, past C&H sugar, Richmond and Berkeley and finally Emeryville. From here, I transfer to a bus that takes me across the Bay Bridge [video clip] to the Caltrain station and 4th & King in San Francisco. Time for another train.

Some mornings, however, I’ll traverse SF a little differently. Depending on timing, weather and my general mood, I may actually take the bus and get off at either the Hyatt in the Financial District, or the Ferry Terminal. From there, I’ll ride along the Embarcadero to Townsend street. Makes for a nice, quick and generally enjoyable ride.

That’s it for Amtrak – and I board the Caltrain #236, leaving San Francisco heading south on the peninsula at 9:37am. Last leg of public transit for the morning.

Those of you who have followed my twitter feed, Facebook, or read the (unfortunately now defunct) SacraFrisco Commuter blog will be familiar with Follow Ross to Work Days (FRTWD). Here, I chronicle my normal commute from my home in Sacramento, CA to my place of employment in Palo Alto, CA. For those of you already doing the jaw drop “oh my gawd” expression – hold on. I don’t actually do this every single day. It averages about 3 days a week. I also don’t drive it – instead opting for a Bike-Train-Bus-Train-Bike combo.

Why is this FRTWD different or better than previous ones?

One word – technology. A second word – Droid. This time around, I’ll be including GPS maps and video along with the normal photo work. As mentioned above, the most up-to-the-minute information and photos will be on my Twitter feed – which is also replicated to my Facebook status. If you’re looking for more of a “digest” form than this blog is the place for you. Here goes….

Alarm Clock sounds…

This morning was a 2-snooze-button morning, but I managed to make it out of the house even a little early. I knew the streets were wet from rains last night (but it wasn’t raining at the time) and that I’d loose some time as I juggled gadgets trying to capture as much content as possible for these posts. The plan was to get a little video of the ride in, as well as map the route.

For the GPS stuff I’d actually decided to use two apps on the Droid. One – CardioTrainer – is the one that I’ve been playing with to track my training rides. I was planning to use this for the shorter segments (like the house to the train station). It tracks cool information like calories burned, etc. The second I’d just downloaded the night before – EveryTrail. The plan was to use this to track the entire trip – from leaving my driveway to arriving at the office.

Well – I kinda blew it on the CardioTrainer portion. I simply forgot to hit that uber-fancy “Start” button to make it actually record my trip. Oh well. EveryTrail is recording the overall trip, however. It still remains to be seen if I’ll have an uploadable map to share when this is all done.

6:10am: So now we’re out the door and on the bike. Things are going as normal for my commute. The streets are pretty wet, but there is no rain falling. I’ve got about 5 different variations on the trip to work, and I choose the easier one (as far as effort on the bike) to give myself ample time to play with the camera. It also happens to pass through Land Park – which is where I plan my first video. Unfortunately, before I get to the park the rain starts to fall. In the interest preserving the Droid from electronics-unfriendly moisture – no video.

Not sure there is much else to really say about the ride in. The rain got harder and I got wetter, but arrived at the train with ample time. I skipped my normal Starbucks Espresso for the morning – more out of laziness than anything – and boarded the 7:00 am train at about 6:43. Let the train ride begin!